Articles Tagged Sunday Nation

A friend was visiting Kenya from abroad recently, and I took him to visit his old high school. The place was a shambles, dirty and decrepit. Some of the desks and chairs looked like they had not been changed since my friend last sat on them thirty years ago. And yet there was gold to […]

Can we run this world as though people matter? Of course we can. Henry Hazlitt showed us how, way back in 1946: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely […]

What’s the most common thing you hear political and business leaders say about Kenya’s insecurity problem? That it’s having a bad effect on the economy. That as tourism implodes, economic purchasing power heads south. That as fear pervades the nation, the investment climate suffers. What’s wrong with this picture? All of the above is true, […]

Edgar Dean Mitchell is a former NASA astronaut. He was the sixth man to set foot on the moon. As he stood on the lunar surface and gazed back at planet Earth, he was profoundly moved. Later, he wrote this about the experience: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction […]

I can’t watch the news anymore. I can’t watch any more images of children being maimed and mangled as rockets rain on them out of the sky, because of ancient hatreds that they know nothing about. I can’t watch any more images of people hell-bent on killing other people within their own borders, because of […]

There’s a problem in business, and it’s a serious one. No, it’s not about the difficult customers, or the disillusioned employees. It’s about the shareholders. Shareholders, we know, are the supreme entity in business. They put their money at risk, and stand to lose it all if things go wrong. They are therefore entitled to […]

Football’s World Cup comes and goes every four years, and in its wake it alway leaves some valuable lessons. This column tries to chronicle them, so here is the 2014 edition. In 2010 I wrote here that to win in football (or any collective endeavour) four ingredients are necessary: first, a great ethos and common […]

It seems wherever we turn in Kenya these days, we find someone discussing their net worth. On frothy television shows, in newspaper spreads, in glossy magazines: invariably someone is on about their material achievements. Said person will be posing for the camera, expensive watch carefully placed to catch the best angle. And the discussion, usually […]

There’s been much debate in Kenya of late around the subject of skin lightening. As we know, many young African and South Asian women take this option, using skin-harming products to chase the illusive beauty myth that surrounds light skin. Many of them, when challenged, defend the practice, calling it no different from changing their […]

You’re stuck in traffic. If you live in Nairobi as I do, there’s nothing special in that statement. We’re mostly stuck in traffic jams, most of the time. It’s the way we’ve become, numbed into the acceptance that wasting time in a vehicle is a natural state of being. Kenyans talk about jam so much […]

Let us not just count the dead. Let us see that it is someone’s loving father, someone else’s only child, a family’s income-earner who has been snuffed out. Terrorists ran amok again in Kenya last week, massacring the residents of Mpeketoni in Lamu County for hours. The full death toll is yet to be confirmed. […]

Last week I laid into the never-ending culture of businesses playing only for the cameras, rather than playing for the real prize. So what is that prize, and how can you tell if you’re on the way to achieving it? The prize of business is no different from the prize of life itself. It is […]

Tomorrow morning in Kenyan newspapers, you will see photos of the following: People holding a dummy cheque together, and smiling at the camera. People pretending to read their company’s annual report together, for the camera. People wearing ill-fitting helmets while touring a construction site, and pointing upwards for the camera. People sitting in a donated […]

Why do so many of our leaders in this country fight tooth-and-nail for titles, like “your excellency” or “the honourable” – even when they are worlds away from being either excellent or having any honour whatsoever? Why are there ugly squabbles perpetually happening for the right to fly the national flag on vehicles, or to […]

The meaning of life is that it stops. I hope reading that sentence placed at least a comma in the flow of your life. What did Franz Kafka mean when he wrote it? Our time on this earth ends. In all cases. There’s a full stop. For some, the full stop comes at the end […]

The grand projects are in full flow, and the media applaud enthusiastically. A new railway, laptops for the children, roads for the counties, WiFi for the towns. All of this is described as largesse, generosity on the part of enlightened government, freebies from our favoured development partners. The money is flowing, and boom times are […]

I had a problem with my jaw recently. I was following Nigeria’s problems with the Boko Haram terror group, and the recent truly horrific abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls. The girls have been missing for weeks, and fears abound that they have been sold into slavery in neighbouring countries. Few of us can truly appreciate […]

Who makes your mind up for you? That would be you, right? Of course we all want to believe we are independent spirits and free-minded souls; that we think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions. Sadly, for most of us that is just a delusion. Our minds are being made up for us, […]

I knew I would have to write this article; the only question was how soon. In August last year I tweeted: “Pep Guardiola will be just fine; David Moyes will not.” I was responding to the appointment of Guardiola and Moyes as managers of two of the top teams in world football: Bayern Munich and […]

A year ago, India seemed to be looking upon itself in horror. A horrific gang-rape had occurred on a Delhi that seemed to shock the nation. Moral outrage filled the airwaves; punitive sentences were promised. This could never be allowed to happen again… And then…what? Nothing much. In fact, the reverse seems to have occurred: […]

When I make a new acquaintance in Kenya, particularly those of a certain age, there is a question I will very likely be asked during that first conversation: “You must know Mr So-and-So Singh?” My new friend will then proceed to roll off the names of a few Sikhs of his acquaintance, typically building contractors […]

If you’re a parent worried about the future of your child, you should really read Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. And the first thing that should begin to worry you is how your child is being schooled. Is this your child’s daily education routine? Show up every day. Be punctual. Fit in. Have good handwriting. Don’t […]

If you run a business, or are employed in one, allow me to put three scenarios to you this Sunday. Think about your answers carefully. Scenario One: an unhappy customer comes to you. She is dissatisfied with the product she bought, because it doesn’t work. You study the situation, and conclude she is right. Should […]

Lupita Nyong’o. A name hardly anyone knew a short while back; one that pretty much everyone knows now. Why is Lupita such a phenomenon? Why is she suddenly in every fashion magazine, TV chat show, dinner-party discussion, social media debate? The clues lie in what is being discussed. Last time I checked, Lupita was an […]

Why are we becoming so interested in ‘richest people’ lists in Kenya? Partly, as I wrote on this page last week, it’s because we have such a slobbering adoration for money as a society. Those who have it are a source of endless fascination for us. But there’s another reason. Too many of us seem […]

Money is everything in Kenya. If you have money, you have everything you need. If you don’t have it, you have nothing and are nothing. To see the truth of this, consider what money gives you in this country. First, money gives you financial freedom. It gives you the ability to cut the chains that […]

My son was fired from his job the other day. And his father was delighted. He’s only ten years old. And the ‘job’ was as manager of a leading football team. In a popular video game. I spent time earlier this week with successful entrepreneurs, listening to their life stories. And here’s the thing about […]

Quail eggs were hailed as the answer to all ailments; prices began rising fast; enterprising Kenyans rushed in to make money; supply surged and prices fell back sharply; many were left nursing wounds and cursing their luck. In that sequence of events lies many a lesson for peculiar Kenyans. Let’s unpick a few this Sunday. […]